Bush Unveils Outline For Ed. Spending

The budget blueprint President Bush proposed last week calls for an
increase of nearly 6 percent for the Department of Education over this
year's appropriation, but it leaves many questions unanswered about how
he would allocate those dollars.

Mr. Bush provided specifics on a few select areas within the
department, such as $900 million for reading, but left out details for
many others. For example, he did not spell out spending levels for the
two largest K-12 programs: Title I and special education, nor did he
indicate how much he would provide to help states pay for his proposed
annual testing requirement for grades 3-8.

Those figures won't be released until the White House issues a
detailed, program-by- program budget proposal in early April.

"It sounds like he's making a good proposal on reading," said Sandra
Feldman, the president of the American Federation of Teachers. "But we
didn't see overall how a lot of the proposals he's seeking would be
paid for."

Mr. Bush submitted the budget outline Feb. 28, one day after
delivering his first address to the House and the Senate. "Education is
my top priority and, by supporting this budget, you'll make it yours as
well," he told the joint session of Congress.

The president's $1.96 trillion blueprint for the fiscal 2002 federal
budget calls for spending increases in some areas, such as education
and defense, with cuts for other agencies. Mr. Bush also wants to take
advantage of an expected budget surplus to begin phasing in a tax cut
of $1.6 trillion over 10 years while continuing to pay down the
national debt.

Republicans appeared generally supportive of the president's
plan.

"It funds many programs that we are currently discussing and
debating, and programs that we are putting together, investing in
individual families, in children, in youth, in health care, and in
education," Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., a member of the Senate education
committee, said last week.

But many Democrats, while citing goals they and Mr. Bush share, took
aim at his proposed tax cuts and criticized the 6 percent increase for
the Education Department as too small.

"We will work with the president to increase literacy, demand
accountability, and improve every public school," House Minority Leader
Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri said in the Democratic response to Mr.
Bush's televised speech. "But with tax cuts consuming almost all of the
projected surplus, he cannot possibly keep his commitment to leave no
child behind."

The budget outline came about a month after President Bush, as his
first major initiative since taking office Jan. 20, unveiled an
ambitious proposal to overhaul the federal role in K-12 education.
("Democrats, GOP Agree in
Principle on Federal Role," Jan. 31, 2001.) Congress is working
this year to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act,
after failing to complete work on it last year.

Mr. Bush's plan would demand improved student performance from
states and school districts, while offering them greater flexibility in
spending federal aid. It also contains a controversial proposal—
which the president reiterated last week—that would allow federal
aid to help pay for private school tuition if a failing Title I school
did not improve over three years.

How Big an Increase?

Some confusion has surrounded the question of how large a percentage
increase is contained in the president's $44.5 billion budget blueprint
for education. Before issuing the document, the White House
indicated—and most major news organizations reported—that
the proposed increase from the current fiscal year's amount would be
more than 11 percent, with $4.6 billion in new funding.

But, as many Democrats noted, the baseline comparison number the
White House used—$39.9 billon in "budget authority"—did not
include more than $2 billion in "advance" appropriations contained in
the current budget but not available until Oct. 1, the start of the
next fiscal year. The actual department appropriation for this year was
$42.1 billion. ("'Flexibility' May Be Sticking
Point for K-12 Budget," Feb. 28, 2001.)

The Bush blueprint repeats the $4.6 billion percent figure, but then
proceeds to clarify that the actual increase in department programs
would be less. A chart in the blueprint indicates that the increase
would be nearly $2.5 billion, or 5.9 percent.

Some $1.6 billion of the increase would go toward the ESEA and
related programs, raising the spending level from $18.3 billion this
year to $19.9 billion in fiscal 2002.

Among the budget items Mr. Bush singled out are:

•$900 million for reading, up from almost $300 million this
year;

•$150 million for facilities costs for charter schools, up from
$25 million this year;

•$25 million for character education, up from about $9 million
this year; and

•$62 million for school construction under the impact- aid
program, up from $13 million this year. Impact aid goes to school
districts affected by the presence of nontaxable federal installations,
such as military bases.

Mr. Bush also proposed $2.6 billion for a new teacher-quality and-
recruitment program, but he did not specify how much extra money that
would involve.

On the higher education front, the president wants to spend an
additional $1 billion on Pell Grants for needy college students, up
from $8.8 billion this year.

At the same time, the administration appears to have changed course
on a Bush campaign proposal to increase the maximum grant solely for
first-year students. The $1 billion would help raise the maximum award
for all recipients, the budget blueprint says.

President Bush's plan presumes more than $400 million in savings by
eliminating all "one time" education projects that have been earmarked
for specific recipients by Congress. But Congress is not likely to end
that practice, which is often referred to as pork- barrel spending.

Meanwhile, many Education Department spending levels—for such
programs as Title I, bilingual and vocational education, safe schools,
education technology, and special education—remained a mystery
last week. And critics suggest that the amounts already specified may
not leave much left to increase funding elsewhere.

"It doesn't give a lot of room for Title I or many of the other
programs," said Edward R. Kealy, the executive director of the
Committee for Education Funding, a group that lobbies for more federal
education spending.

The document does say more money would be available for special
education, a longtime priority for congressional Republicans, but it
provides no exact figure.

At the same time, the president proposes to reallocate some of the
money for emergency school repairs that this year's budget contains. He
wants to open the money up for a broader set of purposes, including
special education, school renovation, and technology costs. A portion
of the $1.2 billion for school renovation this year already allows that
flexibility, but $900 million is specifically for school repair. Mr.
Bush proposes even more flexibility for all those funds next year.

In an education- related area outside the Education Department's
budget, the president does not say how much he will seek for the $6.2
billion Head Start program, which is administered by the Department of
Health and Human Services. He has proposed shifting Head Start to the
Education Department, and the budget blueprint calls for beginning to
plan for such a move.

Potential Sticking Points

President Bush's budget outline arrived several days after a group
of centrist Democrats spelled out changes they would need to see in Mr.
Bush's ESEA proposal to reach a bipartisan compromise. Their own ESEA
reauthorization bill has a great deal in common with the president's
approach.

But some sticking points remain, and one is spending. The centrist
bloc, known as the New Democrats, calls for increasing federal
education aid by $35 billion over five years, or about $7 billion per
year. The New Democrats would raise Title I funding by $22.5 billion
over five years.

"We believe that if we are to demand high standards of
accountability for public schools, particularly those in disadvantaged
communities, then we must provide them with additional resources to
help them meet these new benchmarks," a group of 20 New Democrats wrote
in a Feb. 26 letter to the president.

Vol. 20, Issue 25, Pages 1, 30

Published in Print: March 7, 2001, as Bush Unveils Outline For Ed. Spending

The Department of Education publishes a primer on the federal
budget process, as well as a budget history table showing
year-by-year appropriations for major education programs. (The history
table requires Adobe's Acrobat
Reader.)

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